ALASKA INDUSTEIES. 269 



transmitting with your report to this Department copy to be furnished 

 you by the lessees. 



The Department desires you to take an accounting of all the provi 

 sions furnished by the company (other than what is specified in the lease) 

 to the natives during the past winter and spring, for which they were 

 unable to pay, Avith a view to making some equitable settlement of the 

 matter. It has been rei)resented to the Department that the company 

 has shown a disinclination to provide gratuitously for the widows and 

 their children, the old and feeble among the inhabitants, those who by 

 reason of age or infirmity are unable to work. The provisions of the 

 lease in this regard are clear and explicit, and require the company to 

 take care of this class of people, and you will impress upon the com- 

 pany's agents the fact that this is as much a part of their contract as 

 is the taking of seals. 



It is believed that the practice of killing pup seal for food for the 

 natives should cease. The flesh of the larger seal is said to be quite 

 palatable and equally good for food. The law gives the natives the 

 ])rivilege of killing such young seal as may be necessary for their own 

 food and clothing, but provides that such killing shall be limited and 

 controlled by such regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary 

 of the Treasury. The skins of the pup seal are not used for clothing 

 and are of little value. You are instructed to make investigation as 

 to the expediency and advisability of j)rohibitiug the killing, for any 

 purposes, of seal (except in special instances to provide clothing for 

 the inhabitants), the skins of which will not be accepted by the com- 

 l)any on their quota. Every little seal that the natives take, if not 

 killed, would have the same chance as the rest to return the following 

 year, and in time become a source of revenue to the Government. You 

 are authorized to take any steps which your judgment may dictate to 

 carry out in whole or in part the suggestions herein advanced. 



You will also use whatever endeavor is possible by making known 

 more generally the law on the subject, to prevent the killing of seal on 

 the shores and in the vicinity'of the Aleutian chain of islands. The 

 natives there have petitioned the Dej)artment to permit them to take 

 sufficient seal to furnish food and clothing for themselves and their 

 families, but the law is imperative and limits to the Pribilof group of 

 islands the power of the Secretary to authorize the taking of seal. 



The question of the depopulation of the islands of St. Paul and 

 St. George is a serious one and demands attention. Through some 

 false notions, said to have been inculcated among the natives by the 

 church authorities on the islands, they are not permitted to intermarry 

 if there is between them the remotest degree of consanguinity, and 

 even the relation of godfather or godmother is held to be sufficient to 

 prevent a union. As the regulations prevent any male person from 

 going to the islands to reside permanently, there is a dearth of young 

 men, and the young women are more apt to find husbands elsewhere. 

 The number of natives on the islands is gradually diminished and each 

 year laborers are taken there for the season from Unalaska and vicin- 

 ity. It is understood that residence upon the Pribilof group of islands 

 is considered by the Aleuts to be very desirable and to insure a com- 

 paratively comfortable existence, which they do not always have in 

 other parts of Alaska. You will, therefore, take into consideration the 

 proposition to recruit the permanent inhabitants of the islands of St. 

 Paul and St. George by placing upon them next year a small number 

 (ten or twenty) of young men, or transferring to these islands several 



